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LONDON (Alliance News) - Arbuthnot Banking Group PLC on Thursday said it continued to trade well in the fourth quarter of 2015, and expects to report pretax profit in line with market expectations.
Secure Trust Bank PLC, the retail lender in which Arbuthnot has a 51.9% stake, said it expects its full-year results to be in line with market expectations, allowing for the costs of the agreed sale of Everyday Loans Holdings Ltd to Non Standard finance PLC, with its customer loan book growing by more than 70% over 2015 to end the year in excess of GBP1.0 billion.
Secure Trust Bank "has seen strong demand for asset finance, invoice finance and real estate finance. New lending volumes are 65% higher than in 2014," Arbuthnot said.
Latham, which is Arbuthnot's private banking business for high net worth individuals, said a strong pipeline of lending was drawn down by borrowers during the fourth quarter, meaning that customer lending balances ended the year in line with market expectations.
"The other lines of business in the private bank continue to make good progress while the commercial banking division remains on track with its developments," the bank said.
Arbuthnot said Latham was hit with GBP450,000 of one-off transaction costs after withdrawing from exclusive talks to acquire a second portfolio of residential mortgages, following uncertainty over the potential returns due to potential changes to international banking regulation.
The group as a whole ended 2015 with customer lending in excess of GBP1.6 billion, its highest ever level.
Shares in Arbuthnot were down 2.0% at 1,500.00 pence on Thursday, while shares in Secure Trust were flat at 3,225.00p.
By Samuel Agini; samagini@alliancenews.com; @samuelagini
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